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Among the Shadows: 13 Stories of Darkness & Light

Friday, March 30, 2012

In Which "Rotten Fungus" is NOT Redundant

I got a few comments on my post Wednesday in reference to my "throw away the bad mushroom experiment" item on my to-do list.

So, I have some explaining to do.

No, they were not psychedelic mushrooms, and no, it wasn't a penicillin experiment, either.

Like many ventures gone terribly awry, my story begins with "So there's this website I saw...."

It was called Fungi Perfecti (no kidding, that's the name) which sells these "easy" mushroom growing kits. I looooove mushrooms. (No, I am not a hobbit. I am short though. *checks for hairy feet* Yep, definitely not a hobbit. But I love my Elevensies!)

So we bought this Pioppino mushroom kit. Apparently, you get this bowling ball size of sawdust and mushroom spores. I figured this would be a cinch. Humans don't have to try hard to grow fungus, I reasoned in my reasonable way. Just walk through a boy's locker room barefoot and let the itching begin. Or ignore a loaf of bread. Or let your shower get steamy and watch that black stuff accumulate.

Easy peasy, right?

So I dutifully misted this lump of brown matter (that sounds gross. It really looked like a dry stump). And I kept this little plastic humidity tent on it. And voila! Wittle baby Pioppino mushrooms started to grow, like this:

Dang. I'm good.

But then, oops. Busy me, I forgot to mist it. So then they dried out and looked like this:

And then, in order to make up for my poor watering habits, I over-misted, over-humidified, and basically doused the lump. And then they looked like this:

Now, the mushroom experiment, a horrific fungus-on-fungus violence of spore-ific proportions, is residing in our back yard.

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comments:

Sorry to say this, but I love this post as it made me laugh. Not in a malicious way, but enjoying your turn of phrase and humour.

Don't give up. That would be too easy, now, wouldn't it? I say try again and be more attentive. I'm sure you can succeed if you do give it a second go. Love the diagrams. Maybe you should insider doing a kiddies illustrated book?

Ha, ha! Having grown up with a mushroom house in my backyard (literally) and still living in the heart of mushroom-growing southern Chester County, PA (where pungent manure grows the best white caps), I can safely say I've never had an urge to grow my own mushrooms!

I kill every living plant. Well, except strawberries. I planted them a few years ago and they still grow. It is great for my self-esteem. :) My husband told me that it was time to dig them up and replant, but I'm too scared. I doubt I can replicate the success.

LMAO!!! I love this post and I think you were doing just fine growing those until you forgot to water them, that's all! I'm a big fan of mushrooms, too. Your next book should be about a dystopian society overtaken by zombie mushrooms.

LOL I'm sorry to laugh, but that's funny, but sad too. What a bummer. I've always wanted to grow mushrooms, but wondered if it was worth the bother.

I just had a batch of wood ears (a kind of fungus--so good!) go funky. I made super yummy soup with half of them, then let the rest sit in the fridge too long and they started to smell like fish. I like fish, but wood ears should not smell like fish. ICK!

This is an awesome post, and it reminded me of my childhood. We lived in Caracas and my parents for some reason decided to grow mushrooms. They spent a good year or more trying to grow mushrooms, in our bathtub, in our friends' yards, smuggling in spore from their friends in Taiwan, and all to no avail. So I totally know that it is NOT easy to grow mushrooms!

You amaze me with your ability to tell a story with such humor and wit. This was so funny. I think really, it's fine to just go buy the nice mushrooms at the store, or the Farmer's Market if that makes you feel better. :D

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